Anglicare welcomes
child protection package
Thursday 5 June 2008
Anglicare has welcomed the state
budget's
significant step towards better early intervention
regime for children at risk
Read the full story…
Help
Cure the Cold this winter, and feel the wins of change
Wednesday 4 June 2008
Premier Mike Rann will join Opposition
Leader Martin Hamilton Smith and other local favourites
at the launch of today's Winter appeal for Anglicare SA…
Read the full story
Anglicare welcomes
Reconciliation Week 27 May–3 June
Anglicare has a whole program planned
for Reconciliation Week:
click here to see our Reconciliation Week program
and click here to
see the poster and come and join us!
Anglicare gives
federal budget qualified support
Tuesday 13 May,
2008
Anglicare SA has
lent its qualified support to the Rudd Government’s
first budget
Read the full story…
Legal clinic for the disadvantaged wins national award
Friday 2 May, 2008
A
legal clinic for people at the margins has won a
national award.
Read the full story…
New home for the vulnerable frail
aged opens in Elizabeth
Wednesday 16 April 2008
A new Anglicare SA
facility for the vulnerable frail aged is being opened
today in Elizabeth.
Read the full story…
Youth homelessness
report shows little has changed
Wednesday 9 April 2008
Anglicare SA and sister organisation St John’s Youth
Services have issued a joint statement about youth
homelessness…
Read the full story…
Lynn Arnold pits Anglicare against
‘dead-end options’
Wednesday 12 March, 2008
New chief executive Dr Lynn Arnold has hit out at
the "dead end options" which are served up to those on
the margins…
Read the full story
Anglicare addresses
aged care need in Adelaide’s south
Wednesday 19 February 2008
A ceremony to lay the foundation stone of a new
building…
Read the full story…
Thursday 5 June 2008
The State Government
has taken a significant step towards establishing a
better early intervention regime for children at risk of
neglect or abuse.
Anglicare SA chief
executive Dr Lynn Arnold, said the $190 million child
protection package, announced today, would allow
non-government organisations and government to target
‘at risk’ families before abuse or neglect occurs.
“Early intervention is
essential to reducing what is projected as an 8 per cent
growth in children entering care – an astounding
statistic - which has negative consequences for children
and also places pressure on care givers and government
resources,” he said.
Dr Arnold said the
government had also responded to Anglicare’s call for
more support for foster carers, injecting more money
into the support of carers.
“One area that has been
a key issue for us is the support for foster carers,” he
said.
“Anglicare has long
advocated for lower ratios of support workers to foster
carers, to enable better attention and responsiveness to
the needs of carers.
“The government’s
announcement of better resources for carer support and
increased payments for foster and relative carers is a
welcome boost for a beleaguered system.”
Dr Arnold said the SA
ratios had been the poorest in Australia and the new
funding bolstered a fragile foster carer system that was
under more pressure than ever before.
He said further
pressure would be taken off the foster care system with
the introduction of new residential placement options
for highly traumatised children and young people.
“While it may not take
effect in the short term, they will in the medium term
and that is a step in the right direction.”
Contact: Jonathan
Granger on 0437 791 070 or 08 8305 9301
Wednesday 4 June 2008
Premier Mike Rann will join Opposition
Leader Martin Hamilton Smith and other Adelaide
identities at the launch of the Anglicare SA 2008 Winter
Warmth Appeal today.
The Appeal hopes to raise $200,000 to
help the most vulnerable members of our community who
face the cold winter months with little heating, and
limited money for food.
Anglicare
is looking for donations of blankets, cash and non
perishable food items including tinned meats and
vegetables, breakfast cereals along with pasta sauces
and pasta. Anglicare’s Winter Warmth Hotline is 8305
9300.
As part of the 2008 Winter Warmth Appeal
launch, a forum will be held where delegates will
discuss the ways they believe they, and the community,
can help ‘Cure the Cold’ this winter.
What
Launch of the Anglicare SA
Winter Appeal
Who
Premier Mike Rann, Leader of the
Opposition Martin Hamilton-Smith, Archbishop Jeffrey
Driver, Anglicare CEO Lynn Arnold, broadcaster Peter
Goers, past Olympian Pat Mickan, advertising executive
Andrew Killey, My Restaurant Rules Winner 2005 Greedy
Goose’s Justine Hall
Where Anglicare’s
Magdalene Centre, 26 Moore Street Adelaide
When
12-2pm Wednesday 4 June, 2008
Tuesday 13
May, 2008
Anglicare SA has
lent its qualified support to the Rudd Labor
Government’s first budget; praising initiatives to drive
down the costs of rents to low income people but also
calling on the government to ensure that they assess the
real costs of aged care which often outpaces CPI.
Anglicare SA
Chief Executive, Dr Lynn Arnold, said the introduction
of the National Rental Affordability Scheme was a
positive move.
“Anglicare SA
looks forward to working with the federal and state
governments to expand the provision of such services to
those living at the margins of society,” he said.
Dr Arnold said
Anglicare SA was pleased that, contrary to early
predictions, the Federal Government had maintained the
increase in the Aged Care – Conditional Adjustment
Payment.
“However, we
encourage the Government to measure the cost pressures
in aged care which we believe are exceeding the CPI
average,” he said.
“The CAP (along
with COPO) falls marginally short of CPI in the current
environment. We believe costs relating to nursing
salaries and general health care costs in aged care
facilities outstrip CPI. Even the Treasurer acknowledged
that not everything follows the CPI average when he used
the example of the price of bread accelerating ahead of
the CPI average.”
Anglicare SA
also supports the Government’s commitment to enhance the
indexation of the aged pension, but again calls on the
Government to do a review of the real cost increases
involved as opposed to simply following the CPI average.
“One area that
concerns us is whether the promised increase in support
for ageing carers of disabled children would be carried
forwarded into the 08/09 financial year,” Dr Arnold
said.
“According to
Budget Paper # 2 the provision of $100m only stretches
another six weeks to the end of the current financial
year, with no amount allocated for the coming year. This
is an area of serious need and we hope that the
Government will acknowledge the importance of ongoing
support for people in this situation.”
Contact: Jonathan Granger, 0437
791 070, 08 8305 9301
Friday 2 May, 2008
A legal clinic for people living at the
margins of society in inner-city Adelaide has been
recognised by the charity sector with a national award.
Anglicare SA’s Magdalene Centre was the
first of several inner centre community centres to
launch the Housing Legal Clinic which was named Best
Community Project at the Givewell Charity Awards on
April 30.
The clinic was set up by a working group
of inner city agencies, coordinated by the Welfare
Rights Centre SA, who saw the need for legal services
for clients, many of whom were homeless.
The Magdalene Centre opened the very
first of the clinics in July 2006 when it drew up an
arrangement with Minter Ellison which now provides 30
volunteer lawyers.
Last year the volunteer lawyers saw 300
clients and provided $300,000 of free legal time.
“We have a responsibility as a community
to those who cannot look after themselves or have fallen
on hard times,” Anglicare SA chief executive Dr Lynn
Arnold said.
"For
many of these people getting help with legal issues is
confusing, confronting and financially impossible yet
the issues they face are serious to the extent that they
can preclude them from positively contributing to
society,”
“The social responsibility demonstrated
by the corporate sector here has been invaluable. What
they have done is acknowledged that all people,
regardless of their socio-economic background, do need
good legal advice. For that I give them my thanks.”
The legal clinics follow a similar model
to a new arrangement with National Australia Bank and
the Financial Planning Association to provide pro bono
financial advice to Magdalene Centre clients
The Housing Legal Clinic, managed by the
Welfare Rights Centre, now provides free legal services
at four other agencies — the Hutt Street Centre, Byron
Place Community Centre, Catherine House and Port
Adelaide Family and Support Services.
The clinic’s lawyers and Homelessness SA
are now also working on legislation to go to state
parliament so that itinerant people can enrol and vote
in state elections.
Contact: Jackie Burman, 0419 031 934 or 08 8305 9265
Wednesday 16 April 2008
Pictured right,
Sir Eric and Lady Neal with resident Jack Ridgway at the
opening of Neal Court in Elizabeth today
A new Anglicare SA
facility to care for the vulnerable frail aged in
Adelaide’s northern suburbs was opened today by the
Governor of South Australia, His Excellency Rear Admiral
Kevin Scarce.
Neal Court is a
high care facility for 60 older residents who require
help with their care and accommodation. These residents
are financially and socially disadvantaged. Many suffer
physical, psychiatric or intellectual disabilities and
some have drug or alcohol dependencies.
The facility was
established with a $4.5 million grant from the State
Government, $1.3 million raised through the Archbishop’s
Appeal and a further $4 million from Anglicare SA, which
also provided the land at Elizabeth.
Anglicare chief
executive Dr Lynn Arnold AO said Neal Court was not an
institution but a home.
“The principles of
being at home are that one is in control of one’s own
life in a place that can reasonably be considered theirs
rather than someone else’s,” he said.
“The Archbishop’s
Appeal committee and Anglicare SA had a vision for a
home for people at the fringes of society, people who
needed help. In the community, they risked being taken
advantage of or were simply unable to cope.
“What we have
produced with the help of governments and developers who
shared that vision is not only a home but also a place
of sanctuary where residents will receive the care and
empowerment they need to live as full a life as
possible.”
Neal Court is a
continuation of Anglicare’s determination to find care
solutions for those who are financially and socially
disadvantaged and whose needs could not necessarily be
met in existing aged care facilities. Anglicare
presently operates five residential aged care facilities
in metropolitan Adelaide including Ian George Court, a
similar facility housing 40 men and women in Brompton,
which opened in 2004.
The home has been
named after former South Australian Governor Sir Eric
and his wife Lady Neal, whose leadership and patronage
of Anglicare SA has been a driving force behind the
fundraising efforts that made Neal Court a reality.
Archbishop Jeffrey
Driver said there was an acute need for aged care
facilities throughout Adelaide, particularly for the
vulnerable frail aged who are socially and financially
disadvantaged.
“Those who brought
about this facility – the donors, the developers,
Anglicare SA and governments – should be rightly
congratulated for their foresight and generosity of
spirit,” Archbishop Driver said
“But it is a public
responsibility to ensure that such shelter and care is
available to all vulnerable frail aged people. And there
are many, many more such people than Anglicare’s
facilities can accommodate.
“Everyone,
regardless of socio-economic status, has a right to
adequate care. It is our responsibility, particularly in
times of economic prosperity, to ensure that there is a
safe haven for those at the edge of society.
“Many of the people
have physical and mental health issues exacerbated by
long periods of inappropriate housing, difficult
circumstances, homelessness and other issues but we, as
a caring society, cannot stand idly by and watch them
fall through the cracks.”
Contact: Jackie Burman on 0419 031 934 or 08 8305 9265 or Jonathan
Granger 0437 791 070 or 08 8305 9301
Wednesday 9 April 2008
Anglicare SA and sister organisation St John’s Youth
Services have welcomed the final report and
recommendations from the National Youth Commission
Inquiry into Youth Homelessness.
However the sad fact remains that 20
years after the Burdekin Report, little has changed.
Anglicare SA chief executive Dr Lynn Arnold questioned
how society could tolerate consigning 36,000 young
people across Australia to the margins of society,
limiting their capacity to contribute — particularly in
the context of an ageing population and a nation-wide
skills shortage.
“We only have one chance at life and
that one chance should not be filled with dead-end
options. Yet the truth is that for so many young people
in our society that is what happens… their lives are
filled with dead-end options. Every option available to
them seems destined to failure,” he said.
“The Bible talks about insulting the
spirit of grace. What an insult to the spirit of grace
it would be if we were to stand idly by while for so
many young people, their one chance at this life is
filled with dead end options.
“Youth homelessness masks a range of
often complex and chronic issues for young people – of
histories of abuse, psychiatric disabilities,
unemployment and illiteracy. Unless the options we can
provide address these matters together with the
provision of safe and affordable accommodation we will
continue to fail the thousands of young people who are
homeless across Australia. For many, homelessness is not
a temporary experience - it becomes a long term
lifestyle.”
St John’s Youth Services takes 1000
referrals a year of people who are in need of emergency
accommodation. About half are young women and a third of
those women have small dependent children.
CEO Wendy Malycha said that the young
people who come to St John’s were excluded from most
other services and that over the past decade their needs
had become much higher and more complex.
“10 years ago you might have had one in
20 young people who presented with issues such as a
history of violence, abuse and neglect; drug and alcohol
problems; serious mental health conditions and exclusion
from other services. Now it is about one third of all
young people we see and their homelessness is already
entrenched,” she said.
“Five young people staying in our young
men’s service spoke to Senator Ursula Stephens a few
months ago about their experience of homelessness.
Between them, they had 40 years experience of
homelessness and the average age of the group was 19.”
“We are pleased this report has come at
a time of a new federal government where there is
renewed energy to address the needs of homeless people.
The 10 point road map provides a clear framework for the
future, in particular those recommendations that point
to investment in secure housing to enable young people
to re-engage in education and work.”
Contact: Jonathan Granger, Anglicare SA
0437 791 070
Wendy Malycha, St John's Youth Services
0438 823 481
Wednesday 12 March, 2008
New chief executive
Dr Lynn Arnold has committed Anglicare SA to use its
position as a provider of care and advocate for the
vulnerable to ensure those living at the margins do not
face a life of dead-end options.
Dr Arnold was
officially commissioned as Anglicare SA chief executive
yesterday by Archbishop Jeffrey Driver at St Peter’s
Cathedral in the presence of over 200 Anglicare staff,
volunteers and supporters. In his address, Dr Arnold
said Anglicare was an organisation that had responded to
the needs of the community at any given time since its
beginnings in 1860 and that should continue.
“We each only have
one chance at this life,” he said. “And the chance at
life each of us has should not only be filled with dead
end options and yet the truth is that for so many in our
society that is what it appears to be.
“I think of the
Book of Hebrews where it talks about insulting the
spirit of grace. What an insult to the spirit of grace
it is if we stand by idly when there are some of our
brothers and sisters in this world whose lives, their
one chance, is filled with a series of dead end
options.”
Dr Arnold also said
Anglicare should be engaging donors as champions of the
organisation’s mission, to encourage more support from
those not touched by Anglicare’s work. He said
Anglicare’s role in ‘considered and constructive
advocacy’ was key to helping those facing dead-end
options.
“I want to put to
you that in the way of Ephesians (3:20) where more than
we can ask or imagine we sometimes find ourselves
constrained by the belief that ‘now is not the time’.
The wind is not blowing in the right direction and yet
the message of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians invites us
to consider the possibility that there is more than that
direction of the wind – it can be changed,” he said. “In
our advocacy, that is where we can take on the
directions of winds that leave people with dead end
options.”
“And we should be
about more than just social welfare itself – important
though it is to provide for the basic needs of everybody
– rather we should go further into social empowerment,
that those with whom we work, in whatever context they
are, have their own rights and we have to earn the right
to work with them.
“It should not be a
presumption of ours to believe that they owe it to us to
let us work with them.”
To download the
full text of Dr Arnold's commissioning speech, click
here.
Contact: Jonathan
Granger on 0437 791 070
To download the complete text of Dr Arnold's speech,
click here.
Wednesday 19 February 2008
A ceremony to lay the foundation stone of a new 120-bed
aged care home in Adelaide’s south will be held this
week.
Anglicare SA started work on the new
building in 2006 at Trott Park. Due for completion later
this year, it is anticipated the facility will go some
way to addressing the lack of aged care in the rapidly
expanding southern suburbs.
Anglican Archbishop of Adelaide, Jeffrey
Driver, said there was an acute need for aged care
facilities not only in the south, but throughout
Adelaide.
“With booming rates of economic growth
come responsibilities, not least of all the adequate
provision of care for older people in our community
regardless of their socio-economic circumstances,” he
said.
“There is a particular
need for increased funding for the most vulnerable frail
aged, those most at the edge of society, some homeless,
with high level care needs. Government funding in this
area is still well below the cost of providing the level
of care needed for this group of people.”
The foundation stone will be blessed by
Anglican Archdeacon Peter Stuart, with Anglicare’s
Executive Manager Aged Care Peter Wright on hand for the
ceremony along with Anglicare supporters, local
government reps and staff.
“Anglicare has taken great pride in
ensuring this facility is environmentally responsible
with the incorporation of solar hot water, energy
efficient appliances and drought-tolerant landscaping,”
Mr Wright said.
“As the
site is on the crown of a large hill, residents will be
treated to beautiful views of the Onkaparinga Valley
across to the hills. The area is also free from passing
traffic so it really is a peaceful environment.”
The Trott Park site is within a 3km
radius of a number of essential services including
shopping centres and a local neighbourhood centre, run
by Marion Council, which provides social, educational
and recreational activities. The Flinders Medical Centre
and Private Hospital, along with the Noarlunga Health
Services are also nearby.
Anglicare is also building 27
assisted living units at Trott Park. The units will
provide independent accommodation with the capacity
for residents to get help such as cleaning or meals,
when they need it.
Contact Jackie Burman, Media advisor
on 0419 031 934 or 08 8305 9265
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